A data center may be defined as a location, e.g., room, that houses computer systems arranged in a number of racks. A standard rack, e.g., electronics cabinet, is defined as an Electronics Industry Association (EIA) enclosure, 78 in. (2 meters) high, 24 in. (0.61 meter) wide and 30 in. (0.76 meter) deep. These racks are configured to house a number of computer systems, e.g., about forty (40) systems, with future configurations of racks being designed to accommodate up to eighty (80) systems. The computer systems typically include a number of components, e.g., one or more of printed circuit boards (PCBs), mass storage devices, power supplies, processors, micro-controllers, semi-conductor devices, and the like, that may dissipate relatively significant amounts of heat during the operation of the respective components. For example, a typical computer system comprising multiple microprocessors may dissipate approximately 250 W of power. Thus, a rack containing forty (40) computer systems of this type may dissipate approximately 10 KW of power.
Conventional data centers are known to include hundreds, if not thousands, of computer systems housed in racks. In addition, the racks may be housed in a space comprising 10,000 sq. ft. or more. Due to the size and space necessary for computing requirements in the data centers, the amount of time and expense in performing day-to-day operations by personnel in the data centers is substantial.
One such operation is to inventory the physical locations of the computer systems contained in the data centers. In conventional data centers, personnel manually create an inventory of these physical locations. In addition, the inventory must be updated frequently because the computer systems in data centers are often added, replaced or moved. The task of inventorying these components typically requires a large amount of time and manpower, especially in relatively large data centers, therefore having relatively large operating costs associated with performance of the inventory operations.